The Slap (37 page)

Aisha looked ruefully at the waiter as he settled a new bottle on the table. ‘We better eat or I won’t be able to drive home.’ She wrapped her arms tight around herself. Dusk was falling into night. ‘And can we go inside?’ She poked her tongue out at Anouk. ‘It’s too cold to indulge you smokers.’

‘Well, you better not ask for one after dinner, then.’ Anouk lowered her voice. ‘I’m not sure about the food here.’ She mentioned the name of an Italian restaurant around the corner. Rosie stiffened. She’d heard Aish mention it. It was supposed to be expensive. Unaffordable, out of this world expensive.

Aisha nodded. ‘Sounds good.’ Rosie felt her friend’s hand squeeze her own under the table. ‘Our shout,’ she said quickly, looking across at Anouk who nodded.

‘Thank you,’ answered Rosie, weakly.

It was a fabulous dinner. That was the word for it—the kind of word she could not use around Gary who would snort in derision at it. She hadn’t eaten like that for years: an osso bucco that fell gently off the bone, freshly baked herb bread, a delicious tiramisu that Hugo would have loved.

Afterwards they drove Anouk home and Rosie was glad that Aisha declined the offer to go upstairs for a coffee. Hugo would be missing her; he was unlikely to have fallen asleep without her there. On the drive down Punt Road, crossing the Yarra, Aisha, for the first time that night, spoke about the upcoming trial.

‘You know I want to be there.’

‘You are there.’

‘I hope they make that bastard Harry squirm.’

Rosie, you’ve got the best friend in all the world, she thought to herself. The best friend in the whole world.

 

On Tuesday morning she awoke before dawn. Her first thought was that she was sick, as an intense nausea seemed to emanate from the centre of her abdomen. She thought it must be cramps, then remembered that her period had come last week. She carefully slid out of bed, Hugo and Gary both fast asleep, and rushed to the toilet. She forced herself to retch but nothing came up. She sat on the seat and intoned a yoga mantra. It’s just nerves, she repeated softly, by the end of this day it will all be over.

Rosie made herself a peppermint tea, wrapped her dressing gown tightly around herself and walked out into the garden. There was no wind but it was bitterly cold, a true Melbourne late winter morning, where the night denied the world any hint of the coming spring. She forced herself to sit on the old, rusting kitchen chair, to wait for the sun to rise. She couldn’t bear the thought of standing still but this was exactly what she knew she had to do, stay still, remain calm, fight against the nausea which was only fear, only cowardice.

She had finished her tea when she heard Gary stumble into the kitchen. She went inside and they sat quietly and drank a coffee together. When she asked for a cigarette he rolled her one without comment. She woke Hugo, who took it upon himself to start wailing because he would not be allowed to come with them. But, darling, she said to him, Connie is coming especially to spend the day with you. Thank God for that girl. Connie was taking a day off school to babysit, a day she could ill-afford to lose so close to exams, but she had been adamant. Rosie, I want to do this for you and Hugo. For once she allowed Gary to deal with Hugo’s tantrum and she began getting ready. She was not going to give him a feed this morning. There was no time. And she had to be more firm about weaning him off her breast. It was time.

She had chosen her outfit months ago, a conservative fawn business suit she had worn to interviews when she first arrived home from London. By the time she finished applying her make-up Gary had somehow managed to calm Hugo. She made toast for her son while Gary showered and got dressed. He asked Rosie for assistance in doing up his tie; she noticed that his hands were shaking. She clasped them tight, kissed his fingers, which tasted of cigarettes and soap. He kissed her back, on the mouth, with a force that was almost erotic. It will all work out fine, he whispered. Shamira, who had picked up Connie on the way, arrived just after eight. Rosie almost cried when she saw her friend. Shamira was dressed in a thin black wool sweater, with a matching long black skirt. She had let her hair out. She still wore a headscarf but it was a simple cobalt silk shawl that coiled loosely across her head and shoulders, allowing the bulk of her hair to fall as a blonde wave down the back of her jumper.
She had let her hair out.
Can’t take any chances, she joked as Rosie hugged her, just in case the judge has it in for us Mussies. Gary didn’t seem able to speak. He too hugged Shamira tightly. See, Shamira laughed, wiping a tear from her eye, I told you I’m really just a white-trash scrubber underneath all this.

She drove them to the courthouse in Heidelberg. It was not yet nine o’clock when they parked but already the steps leading up to the building were full of people, all of them seeming to suck on endless cigarettes. Two bored-looking policemen were speaking quietly in front of the court’s glass entrance. As they approached the steps, the mixture of people waiting seemed to Rosie to represent the whole world. They were white, Aborigine, Asian, Mediterranean, Islander, Slav, African and Arab. They all seemed nervous, uncomfortable in their cheap, synthetic suits and dresses. It was obvious who the lawyers were. Their suits were finely woven, well-fitting.

Gary was frowning. ‘Where the fuck is our lawyer?’

‘She’ll be here.’

‘When?’ Gary started to roll a cigarette and a young man wearing a pale blue shirt a size too small for him peeled away from the crowd and walked over.

‘Mate, can I scab a rollie?’

Silently Gary passed him the pouch. The young man rolled a cigarette and with a cheeky grin handed the pouch back to Gary.

‘What are you here for?’

‘Assault.’

‘Ma-ate,’ the boy called out, making the word into a chant, ‘me too.’ He winked again. ‘Course, we didn’t do it, did we?’ With a grin he fell back into the crowd, standing next to an old woman who looked spent. Rosie smiled at her and received a sad, fatigued, frightened grimace in return.

Sad, fatigued, frightened. That pretty much summed up the faces of everyone around her. She quickly glanced over at her husband. He wore another face, a face that could also be glimpsed on some of the other men in the crowd. Tight, arrogant, tense, as if the day was a challenge they were preparing to take on. Like her husband, these men scowled as soon as anyone looked towards them. A small number of these men had forsaken suits and ties and cheap department-store shirts for their track-pants, hip-hop hoods and leather jackets. She knew that Gary would admire them, respect their refusal to participate in the charade. She could read his thoughts clearly. She bit her lip. But this wasn’t about him or her. This was about Hugo.

The courthouse doors were opened and the crowd started to move inside. Gary smoked another cigarette before Margaret finally arrived, breathless, apologetic, complaining about the traffic. Gary fixed her with a vicious glare that stopped her mid-sentence. She ignored him and turned to Rosie, who introduced her to Shamira.

‘Should we go in?’

‘Yeah,’ Gary replied sullenly. ‘I guess we should fucking go in.’

The courthouse was only a few years old, a grey steel monument to the new century’s economic boom that had already started to develop the forlorn, dissolute air that seemed to attach itself to any government institution. It smelt of cleaning agents and abandoned hopes to Rosie—there was no colour anywhere and the little there was, in the bad landscapes and still lifes on the walls, seemed to be draining away, as if to conform with a monochrome future. Margaret led them down the corridor to an enormous waiting room where a small screen sat high above everyone’s head. There was no sound and the television chef looked ridiculous as he silently instructed the audience how to cook a Thai curry. They found seats and Margaret left them to look at the schedule affixed on the courtroom’s door.

‘It’s a busy day,’ she announced on returning, scanning the crowd, not catching their eyes. ‘But we’re not far down the list. Fingers crossed we might get called before noon.’

Gary cocked his eye up at her. ‘Who’s the judge?’

‘Emmett. She’s alright.’ Margaret was still not looking at him.

‘What do you mean by alright?’

Rosie placed a warning hand on her husband’s knee. Don’t antagonise her. She’s on our side.

‘She’s good.’ Margaret was about to add something further when she suddenly stopped. They all turned around at once.

She hadn’t seen him since that awful day he’d come over with Hector to apologise. Not that he had meant it. It was obvious he hadn’t meant it. She could never forget that sneer. He wasn’t sorry; he had come over to look down at them. He had not once taken that sneer off his face. There was a trace of it now, as he looked around the waiting room. He had not yet noticed them. But everyone had noticed
them
. Rosie’s heart sank. He and his wife stood out from this crowd, stood high above this crowd, not because of any elegance or sophistication or style. There was none of that in the new suit, new dress, new shoes, new handbag, new haircuts. All they were, all they screamed of was money. Dirty, filthy money. But that was enough to raise them up above everyone else in the room. Rosie watched as their lawyer, inhumanly tall, like some mutant insect trapped in a suit, led them towards a seat. It was then that Rosie caught his eye. That sneer, that up-himself arrogant cunt, that sneer was still on his face. But that was not what made her gasp, made her body tighten, as a shock of naked, electric fury ran through her. Walking behind them, escorting them there, was Manolis, Hector’s father.

She went straight for him. Gary leapt up to restrain her but she shook his hand away. The monster went to say something to her but she refused to look at him, refused to acknowledge him or his trophy wife. She went up to Hector’s father and when she spoke her voice did not tremble but there was no mistaking her fury. You shouldn’t be here. Aren’t you ashamed? You shouldn’t be here. Her spittle landed on his shirt. She didn’t give a fuck. Their lawyer went to say something to her but she was already turned on her heels and walking back to her husband and her friend. She was trembling as she sat down but she had achieved what she wanted. She had shamed him, she’d seen it in the old man’s eyes. She had humiliated him. Good. That was exactly what he deserved. Aisha was the one who should be here, Aisha should be here by her side, but she’d had the human decency to do right by her family. But family was not only blood. She and Aisha were like sisters and Manolis knew this. He and his wife Koula had been there at Hugo’s naming ceremony, and how many wog Christmases and wog Easters and namedays and birthdays had they shared with Manolis and Koula, how often had they been guests in their home? Too many to count. She was glad that she felt no urge to cry. He was in the wrong. She would never forgive him.

 

When they finally entered the courtroom she had to stifle her disappointment at how unimpressive it was. A lone Australian coat of arms sat above the judge’s seat and already a stain of weak, lemon-coloured damp was rising in the corner of the hall. They took seats near the front and waited for their case to be heard.

The pettiness of people’s lives, the mundane sadness of what people did, mostly for money, sometimes for love or out of boredom, but mostly for the desperate need for money, is what Rosie took away from that day. Young men—just boys really, but already with long, tedious prior convictions read out by equally young, bored coppers in hesitant monotonous tones—faced the dock for stealing toys, stealing radios, stealing iPods, stealing televisions, stealing handbags, stealing work tools, stealing food, stealing liquor. There were young mothers ripping off the dole, young girls shoplifting trinkets and mascara and DVDs and CDs and Barbie dolls for their kids. There were contrite men charged with drunk-driving offences or for having beaten up some stranger who looked the wrong way at them outside a pub. The police would read out the charges, a lawyer—they must have all been from Legal Aid, all young, anxious, weary—would make a stab at a defence and then the terse judge would make her ruling. She seemed burdened by her work, handing out fines, suspended sentences, a short stint in prison for a young bloke who was up for his fourth burglary charge.

After a while Rosie stopped listening. Every so often Gary would get up to go out for another cigarette and she would not look at him. She knew what he was thinking because she had begun to think it as well. What are we doing here? She must not think this way. Their charge was not petty. The crowded, unadorned, windowless room was far too hot, the atmosphere was constricting, claustrophobic. Rosie knew that this was the world Gary had been born into and which he had wanted to escape. It dawned on her that losing money was not equivalent to never having had money. That was why Gary had been so frightened of coming, why he had been so resistant, so angry. He did not want her exposed to this world.

Rosie held tight to Shamira’s hand. It would soon be over. She was aware that the monster and his wife were sitting at the other end of the crowded courtroom. Manolis was sitting beside them. She did not glance their way once. She concentrated on the weary face of the judge. It was obvious the woman wanted to be kind, that she was not eager to send these young men and women to prison. But it was equally clear that she had long given up any interest in or passion for the process. Her words, her pronouncements, her explanations of protocol, her summations were all intoned in the same tired, disengaged manner.

Dear God, she prayed silently, grant me victory, please grant me victory.

 

Afterwards she realised they never had a chance. The policeman who stood up to read out the charge was the same man who had come to their house the night Hugo was slapped. Then he had seemed mature, direct; he’d been encouraging and seemed to share their outrage. On the stand, he now seemed red-faced, sullen, unconfident. He stumbled over the language of his report. The charge was assault with intention to do grievous harm to a child. The young policeman haltingly read out the details of the incident the previous summer, then Margaret rose and repeated the charges, coldly stating the ugliness of a man hitting a small child of three years of age. In this day and age, Margaret finished, nothing can excuse such behaviour. And then the giant lawyer rose and went in for the kill.